For both professional and home cooks in this town, Surfas in Culver City has long been our culinary mecca, a place to buy Valrhona chocolate in bulk, enormous stock pots, digital thermometers, spices and flours and duck fat. It's a place where you can find obscure kitchen gear — and often run into chefs trolling the aisles with all the rest of us.

For years, there have been rumors that Surfas would close, starting soon after the present location opened in 2005 and only getting more frequent with the redevelopment of that section of Culver City and the expansion of the Metro line neaby. But this time the rumors are true: Les Surfas recently sold the property.

But Surfas, whose father started the company in 1937, does not plan to close but to relocate the business. He's also not closing the present location for a while — as he still has close to two years on his current lease. So calm down. Your vanilla caneles and enormous skillets are still there. And the Orange County location will be unaffected.

"I'm not closing the business," Surfas said Thursday morning. "I'm going to start looking hard in a year" for a new location. Surfas admitted that he'd had a lot of "people problems" of late, which he also said he'd solved, and that those had contributed to the rumors of the store closing. But he and his aisles of cooking gear aren't going anywhere. For which we're all very grateful.

With the smells of charcoal and propane beginning to perfume backyards across the nation, now is the perfect time to take stock of your equipment. Whether you’re an old hand or are new to this most primal of cooking methods,...

With the smells of charcoal and propane beginning to perfume backyards across the nation, now is the perfect time to take stock of your equipment. Whether you’re an old hand or are new to this most primal of cooking methods,...